Cape Breton Dancing

[nooneknowsmenow]

Strathspey Place, another wonderful adition to Mabou.

[nooneknowsmenow]

just sayin



[boydwauna1]

nice dancing and fine fidling! cape breon step-dancing requires certain strathspeys for strahspey steps and certain reels for reel steps.

[CadillacL]

AWESOME dancing :)

[gillysabeth]

too hoppy for CB dancing.. and i dunno how on earth you danced to that strathspey.. waaaay too friggin slow.

[gitarrefish08]

very very good

[DoTheSpotDance]

Hey all, this is Danielle :-) To answer your questions, I'm originally an Irish step dancer, turned sean-nos dancer (I teach both here in the Twin Cities) and am currently working on cape breton, tap and Appalachian clogging. This video was taken a few years ago shortly after I had begun to learn the Cape Breton dancing. I'd LOVE to learn ottawa valley, but haven't had the opportunity yet. Aine: who's this????

[ainefidileir]

Hey is this Danielle who posted this?

[maithcailin]

Good question, madfortrad07. As a sean-nos dancer learning Cape Breton, I can tell you that the traditions are similar and hold some steps in common. However, they are completely different traditions -- sean-nos being Irish and Cape Breton being heavily influenced by Scottish music and dance. As a sean-nos dancer, Cape Breton feels very "hoppy" to me. The best way to tell the difference is probably to watch a lot of videos. You'll see the differences after a while!

[Cuchullain10]

:))

[NSResponder]

Excellent! Very fine fiddler, too.

-jcr

[dclvng]

The difference between the 2 is the rhythms and accents. As well, many steps in Cape Breton style dancing have a connection to highland dance steps. However, there are many influences in Cape Breton style dancing, from the Irish, and the French. The dancer in this video looks as if she is trained as a Irish dancer, or maybe Ottawa Valley Style. However I am only guessing.

Cheers

[madfortrad07]

Thanks ! :-)

[ghillies4life]

I would actually guess Ottawa Valley. Irish dancers, even when dancing Cape Breton, have an uncontrollable urge to point and cross over, because those are both ESSENTIAL things in Irish, even though they're not stylistic of Cape Breton dancing. (I'm an Irish dancer)

[maithcailin]

Just FYI: Sean-nos dancing is very different from Modern Irish step dancing. The formalities of Modern Irish dance (point and crossover, etc) aren't relevant to sean-nos dancing at all.

[madfortrad07]

Great dancing !

But how can you tell the difference between Irish Sean nos dancing and Cape Breton dancing ??? :-)

[ainefidileir]

ok, whoever put together this event needs to learn how to ADVERTISE!!! lol

I SO would have been there! sweet jaysus I'm so sick of missing great stuff in the TC because no one around here knows how to promote stuff! LOL